Seraphine asked for Lyra specifically.
Not Aelara. Not the family. Just Lyra, which was unusual enough that Lyra noticed it when the message came, the specific quality of being asked for by name by someone who was careful about everything they did, including who they asked for and when.
She went on a Friday afternoon.
Seraphine's rooms in the Citadel were at the end of the east corridor, the quieter end, the part of the building that caught the afternoon light in the particular way of west-facing windows. Lyra had been here many times across the years, for the work sessions and the conversations that were not quite lessons and not quite something else but somewhere between the two.
She knocked.
Seraphine opened the door herself.
She looked at Lyra with the look she used for things she had been thinking about for a while and was now ready to do.
"Come in," she said.
Lyra came in.
